So I may as well say something here as well since the cat is out of the bag as to why I'm taking a break from blogging.

I am tired of seeing Ravenous Romance being dogged as if it had personally violated all the children in one's neighborhood.

I've said before, I wasn't too enamored of their PR either, but I honestly DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY whenever Lori Perkins and Jamaica Layne dare to show their faces online, you will see a bunch of people rush in for the kill like sharks scenting blood. Okay, forget a certain online celebrity/walking wank that of course is knee-deep in the smelly stuff - we know why she does what she does, let's focus on the other people.

I don't get it.

Do we have to repeat again and again and again how terrible an author Jamaica Layne is? I mean, let's see - she's in danger of turning into Dear Author's Cassie Edwards, what with I hear there is a "Ravenous Theater" and all, so there's no shortage of articles about what a terrible author Jamaica Layne is and how Ravenous Romance is making smut the new trendiness. But having an open letter denouncing Ravenous Press and Jamaica Layne at the same as familiar names on Dear Author infesting Romancing The Blog with criticisms about Jamaica Layne/Ravenous Press?

It's overkill. It's... unpleasant.

Ravenous Romance exists. So what?

They publish stories that some people find terrible. Again, so what?

Are they going to destroy romance? Is it so disastrous that Jamaica Layne continues to write, that people have to be subjected again and again and again and again to reminders that she is a terrible author?

I'm not even going to start on the comments in the Dear Author thread... except, god! I swear, there must be something in the color scheme of Dear Author's template, perhaps, that make reasonable people say stupid things. Like that author who said that only desperate authors would sign up to write for Ravenous Press (read: she didn't, so give her a medal, somebody!). Or that author who despite claiming to have pulled the analogy out of thin air just had to compare readers of Ravenous Romance to shit-eaters. Or those people who want to see Ravenous Romance implode, close shop, or worse.

What is all this, people? I'm sure there will be a bunch of people who insist that the truth must be shone, blah blah blah, but the fact is, Ravenous Romance is NOT destroying romance. I don't know anybody who reads a bad story from Ravenous Romance who goes, "Oh! Romance is SO TERRIBLE!" Ravenous Romance will not destroy romance. Ravenous Press will not make people think all romances are smut. Jamaica Layne did not run over anyone's puppies (at least, none that I know of), right?

And what is the point of all that vitriol? What do they want to achieve? Embarrass Lori Perkins and Jamaica Layne into leaving Ravenous Romance? Seeing it blown out to pieces and out of existence? WHAT? Please someone tell me that there is a sensible purpose to all this nonsense so that I can understand the situation. But please don't tell me this is for the good of romance because I'm not born yesterday and I certainly have been around the block long enough to know that someone calling romance novels "smut" isn't going to cause the genre to collapse or fold in shame. This is a personal issue, it looks like to me.

I don't know what it is about Ravenous Romance that turns people into walking scarlet baboon asses but I do know that it is moments like this that I wish people will not lump me as a Mean Girl or anything, not if being a Mean Girl means behaving like this.

So I'm heading off to outer space, so to speak, and hopefully when I come back to Earth, things will be sane again.

Comments are locked, by the way. Anyone who thinks I need to face the repercussions for this blog entry can whine about it somewhere else because right now I can't be bothered to lower myself to their level.